Pondering...

When I started out in radio decades ago, I did it quite accidentally. I always thought that playing someone else's songs was a sell out. But I sold out and played some stupid stuff, because it was unavoidable. I mean, when I first started I maneuvered around the format to play better songs. It was top forty and it was a losing battle, but I was a genuine deejay. That's DISK JOCKEY for those of you too young to know. Yes, there were discs. Vinyl ones and then compact ones and there were carts and, well that's all beside the point.

Deejay takes on a different connotation these days and has for a while with these guys, I guess out of boredom, (after all, you can only stand so much so called "dance" music. Before that it was disco and they call it hip hop and "urban") they started "scratching." Only someone of diminished mental capacity would think of such a sound as "hey, that's pretty neat!" (Yeah, I know, they said, "fly" or such) Deejays tend to fall into that category.

Wow, THAT was a rabbit trail. ANYWAY, when I first started attending karaoke (dragging my feet to do so because of pre-conceived notions) it was karaoke. The first few places I went to did it right. Good or bad, in tune or no tune at all, you heard a collection of people sing their songs (or someone else's) and when they got to the end of the list, they started again at the top. I have a friend who owned a bar where there was karaoke and she'd be first singer, starting off the rotation and as owner had the perfect right to sing four or five or six and then begin the rotation. Some people didn't like it, but I figured it was her right.

THEN, something changed. This thing called "dance breaks" began to happen. Oh, the early venues didn't buy into this, but the new ones felt the urge to relieve those who didn't come to hear locals an alternative. Some claimed "It gets the pretty girls out there shakin' their STUFF!" It did. (Not to mention a water buffalo or two, as well. These karaoke hosts fancy themselves to be "deejays." Some, going so far as to put the initials before their names when many have never been on the air in their lives. Funny, me thinks. So some call the "dance breaks" (chances to catch up on email or visit a young maiden in the parking lot) "deejay breaks." One is hard pressed to find a so called "karaoke" venue that is more than fifty percent actual as advertised KARAOKE!

Well I say, if you don't like karaoke, go home and play the radio or go to a club! Let those of us who LIKE it and want to participate a chance to do so! And I guess I keep harping on it. I totally understand the concept of "butts in the seats" and that under aged water drinkers or those who only buy sodas, don't pay the rent. I get it. That's why I always try to buy my meal at the place I'm going to for karaoke.

So, with this in mind, I am thinking of beginning to host ROEBUCK'S 100% pure karaoke...no dance breaks. Any takers?

I didn't think so :(